by Robert Wilkinson
This Solar Eclipse will have a very beneficial stabilizing effect for a very long time. All eclipses shut something down, taking away elements of our lives no longer true for us. Over the next 5+ years many will go through endings while finding forms of deeper and wider compassion and connectedness with people and experience.
Pisces is the sign of endings, harvests, and the collective consciousness. It is where we feel connected to all other human beings, with a vast sense of the generic human conditions and all the ghosts we share with all others, past and present. It is how Virgo externalizes, and with the North Node in Virgo close to Jupiter, handle of the Bucket configuration, as the old Pisces manifestations fade away into the mists of time, we shall find growth in new forms of work, health, service, and practical adventures.
Because this Eclipse lasts 5 hours and 15 minutes from start to finish of the penumbral phase, and 3 hours 23 minutes of the umbral phase, it’s of extremely long duration, so will have an impact for about 5 years and 3 months, with maximum intensity for 3 years and 4 months. Thus it will have effects for a long time to come, so it’s good that we have several productive and harmonizing aspects in play at the Eclipse.
Because the NN shows the line of development, the challenge is to open to seeing what needs to be worked on and adjusted to make it function better. This will help us see the practicality of certain activities, as well as the parts of life that don’t work so well and need correction. Whatever is cleared out via the Pisces SN will over time attract new forms of Virgo expression and activities.
Look to the house where this Lunation falls to see what area of your life will be impacted, just as the houses where past Solar Eclipses fell have already been shutting down obsolete patterns since then. I gave you the positions and links to past eclipses in yesterday’s article. And remember that whatever is taken away will create an attraction for something more appropriate to who you are now, and who you are becoming.
So What’s Happening Where?
This Total Solar Eclipse happens Mar 8 at 5:54 pm PST, 8:54 pm EST, March 9 at 1:54 am Greenwich. This mystical, distributive, serendipitous and feeling-oriented Solar Eclipse will be strongest where it falls near one of the angles in locations around the world.
We see the Eclipse on the nadir in the UK, Western Europe, and west Africa., and on the eastern horizon in Pakistan and India. It is near the midheaven in Japan, western Oz, and Nez, and setting in North America.
A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the Sun and Earth. The Moon blocks the light from the Sun and casts a shadow on Earth. In eclipse lore, where the Eclipse is visible will be where the greatest effects can be expected, lasting the number of years that the eclipse is long in hours.
Past Eclipses As Prologue To Our Present and Future
As I've mentioned in previous articles, we had 4 Solar Eclipses in 2011, which was a very rare occurrence. The January 2011 Eclipse was visible in Europe and the major cities of the Middle East. Perhaps that Eclipse had some correlations with the "Arab Spring" revolutions spreading throughout that region.
The Solar Eclipse of January 2011 lasted 4 hours and 20 minutes, which also made it a player in the events of 2012-2015, since it was active for 4 years and 4 months. That influence is now over. As noted, the June 2011 Gemini Eclipse was very long, bright, and powerful, while the July 2011 Cancer Eclipse was short and weak, and its influence only lasted through the end of 2012.
The November 2011 Sagittarius Eclipse was very bright, and has been in effect for about 4 years after that. So besides the usual transits and Lunations, planetary stations and conjunctions to the outer transformational planets, we also have Eclipses as long wave influences still be in play years after the event!
The June 2011 Eclipse was visible in Northern Canada, Iceland, Greenland, and Norway. The July 2011 Eclipse was visible only in a small area between Antarctica and South Africa, so was seen by no one. The November 2011 Eclipse was visible in South Africa, Antarctica, and New Zealand.
The May 2012 Eclipse was visible from S. China and Japan through the Northern Pacific and Aleutian Islands down to S. Oregon and N. California, central Nevada, southern Utah, northern Arizona, New Mexico (Albuquerque!), and the Texas Panhandle. The November 2012 Total Solar Eclipse was partial across a large area of the South Pacific (including Australia and New Zealand), southern South America, and part of Antarctica. The only place it was total was on the east coast of Queensland, Australia.
The May 2013 Annular Solar Eclipse at 20 Taurus will be in effect for 3 years and 9 months, putting its influence through early 2017. That one was visible in Australia, Indonesia, Oceania and much of the central the Pacific Ocean. The November 2013 Hybrid Solar Eclipse at 12 Scorpio will be in effect for about 3 years and 4 months, also putting its influence in play through early 2017.
That one was visible within a thin corridor, which traverses the North Atlantic and equatorial Africa. A partial eclipse was seen in eastern North America, northern South America, southern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
As an aside, of some note is that the Solar Eclipse at 12 Scorpio fell during Diwali, a great sacred Festival of Light celebrating the victory of good over evil through the Grace of Lakshmi, one of the Forms of Divine Mother. I suppose whatever is associated with that Eclipse that has been or is yet to be taken away, will be a form of Grace that blesses us.
The April 2014 Annular Solar Eclipse at 9 Taurus was only in effect for 2 months, so its effects were quick to fulfill and pass away. That one was visible in Antarctica, and partially visible in the southern Indian Ocean, the southern edge of Indonesia and all of Australia.
The October 2014 Partial Solar Eclipse at 1 Scorpio will be in effect for 4 years and 3 months, putting its influence through all of 2018. That one was visible across all of North America.
The March 2015 Total Solar Eclipse at 30 Pisces will be in effect for 4 years and 2 months (penumbral length) with the most intense period being 1 year and 2 months (umbral period). That one was visible in Iceland, Europe, North Africa, and North Asia, with the Eclipse visible in its totality in the far north Atlantic, the Norwegian Sea, Svalbard, and the Faroe islands.
The September 2015 Partial Solar Eclipse at 21 Virgo will be in effect for 4 years and 5 months, putting its influence through 2019. That was of a relatively low magnitude, and was only be visible in South Africa, Madagascar, the South Indian Ocean, and Antarctica.
What Does NASA Have To Say About This Eclipse?
I’ve been using information from the NASA Solar Eclipse site for many years. In the past, they included a bunch of information about each eclipse, but last year changed what’s on their site.
There’s a huge amount of information toward the bottom of the page about every eclipse you could ever want to research. Have fun! And this page gives all the technical information about the eclipse.
This Eclipse has a relatively high magnitude, and will only be visible in east Asia, Oz, and the Pacific Ocean, with the total eclipse visible in Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi, and the Pacific Ocean. You can find more by going to the NASA site.
More On the Influence of Eclipses
Besides the factor of where the shadow falls, in Astrology Eclipses are said to be most powerful when they conjunct the Sun, Moon, Ascendant, or Midheaven of a birth chart. When this happens it always brings endings related to the planets and sectors involved, but these can be of great benefit in clearing away old life factors that have no place in our future. As it was once sung, "something's lost and something's gained in living every day..."
Of course, besides these past echoes and the usual general effects, the Eclipse will also bring losses and endings where it falls in our individual birth charts. In an example I offered in the article explaining Solar Eclipses in general of how a loss can work to great benefit, if it conjuncts the Saturn in a birth chart, it can indicate the ending of old, lesser responsibilities, limitations, or fears, and open the being to a greater sense of purpose. If it conjuncts Jupiter, then it could show the ending of an old philosophy or belief system and open the gates to something far greater.
Given a Solar Eclipse is a New Moon, then like all Lunations that work their influence over time, it triggers events related to previous celestial events, and is triggered by subsequent transits to those points. For example, because of where the North Node is, we can assume this Eclipse at 19 Pisces will set developments into motion related to the lessons dating back to when Saturn went stationary retrograde at 22 Virgo in December 2008, directly impacting all our charts through August 2009.
That event crystallized effects set into motion at the Sept 2007 Solar Eclipse at 19 Virgo. In a “coincidence,” that eclipse will be revisited in some way since Jupiter, worldly ruler of this eclipse, is at 19 Virgo. That also resonates with events that happened as a result of Jupiter going stationary retrograde at 19 Virgo in January 2004, since this is a Jupiter return of that event.
It also should bring a focus on events related to events precipitated by Uranus going stationary direct at 19 Pisces in November 2008. So this one reaches back to 2004, arcing through 2007-2009, and shows us what’s to come through 2021. Interestingly, at the end of the Eclipse period, Neptune will be stationary direct on the exact degree of this Eclipse.
Whatever is promised by this Eclipse will activate when Jupiter goes direct in May and transits its degree and the degree of the NN in July 2016, and set into motion by the inner planet transits between mid-August and early October 2016. Another round of activity will be set off when Mars and Venus transit the eclipse degree in January 2017, followed by Mercury and the Sun in March 2017.
The final near-term effects will be set off by Mars transit of the Jupiter and NN degrees in October 2017. Of course, we shall see these eclipse spread into the collective consciousness as Neptune goes stationary retrograde on the eclipse degree in 2019, and pass back and forth until it goes stationary direct in late 2020 on the same degree.
This Eclipse and these transits are opportunities to understand how we are training and what we are training for in the way of technical skills within an actional context. The Eclipse in a tight opposition to Jupiter accents the polarity, with Jupiter the means of externalizing the Piscean energies.
So like last September’s Solar Eclipse in Virgo, this one is also about being educated by experimentation, with substantial productivity indicated by Jupiter, ruler of the Eclipse, in an opposition-sextile-trine configuration with Pluto, throwing very productive energies into our Cancer sector. I’ll explain more about the aspects in play at this Eclipse in future articles.
In the next part of the series, we'll explore how this Eclipse will manifest and its astrological components, including Sabian Symbols, which signs will be most affected, and more on the mixed energies at work in this Total Solar Eclipse. Since it’s very bright and of long duration, get ready to say goodbye to ambivalence and any tendency to drift or procrastinate, and get into training and learning/showing your skills!
See you soon with the next article on this Solar Eclipse!
© Copyright 2016 Robert Wilkinson
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